All posts tagged: Yann

Son of Nobody review: More proof that Yann Martel is a literary paper tiger

Son of Nobody review: More proof that Yann Martel is a literary paper tiger

Published by Sam Flores

The Booker is much to blame. Yann Martel was almost entirely unknown as a writer when, in 2002, he won the prize for Life of Pi, the story of an Indian boy castaway in a boat for 227 days with a big Bengal tiger for company, an allegory of the hazardous odyssey of the soul. Shortly after his victory, Martel said: “I feel like Jesus Christ after he’s done his three days in Hell, I feel like a boy who has just discovered the joys of self-abuse, I feel like Sir Edmund Hillary after he’s stumbled to the top of Everest, all three joys all at once.” Justifiably, perhaps. For Life of Pi went on to sell 15 million copies in 50 languages and to be filmed in 3D by Ang Lee — the movie took $609 million at the box office. No other author’s fortunes have been so transformed by a prize. Yann Martel Tammy Zdunich Photography Martel’s subsequent career has been less brilliant. His proposal for a follow-up, a flip book about the …

Yann LeCun Raises Billion to Build AI That Understands the Physical World

Yann LeCun Raises $1 Billion to Build AI That Understands the Physical World

Published by skeptic

Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), a new Paris-based startup cofounded by Meta’s former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, announced Monday it has raised more than $1 billion to develop AI world models. LeCun argues that most human reasoning is grounded in the physical world, not language, and that AI world models are necessary to develop true human-level intelligence. “The idea that you’re going to extend the capabilities of LLMs [large language models] to the point that they’re going to have human-level intelligence is complete nonsense,” he said in an interview with WIRED. The financing, which values the startup at $3.5 billion, was co-led by investors such as Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital, and Bezos Expeditions. Other notable backers include Mark Cuban, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and French billionaire and telecommunications executive Xavier Niel. AMI (pronounced like the French word for friend) aims to build “a new breed of AI systems that understand the world, have persistent memory, can reason and plan, and are controllable and safe,” the company says in a press release. …

Humanoid Robot Demos vs Autonomy : Yann LeCun’s Critique

Humanoid Robot Demos vs Autonomy : Yann LeCun’s Critique

Published by skeptic

What if everything you thought you knew about robotics was just smoke and mirrors? TheAIGRID explains how Yann LeCun, one of the most influential voices in artificial intelligence, has sparked a fiery debate by calling out the robotics industry for its overreliance on polished demonstrations and brute-force data training. According to LeCun, many humanoid robots we see today are little more than performers in a carefully staged show, incapable of adapting to the unpredictable challenges of the real world. His critique cuts deep, questioning not just the methods but the very philosophy driving the industry’s progress. It’s a bold claim that forces us to reconsider what it truly means to build intelligent machines, and whether the current approach is setting us up for failure. In this feature, we’ll unpack the core of LeCun’s argument and explore his vision for a new path forward. From the limitations of pattern-matching algorithms to the innovative potential of explicit world models, this discussion reveals the stark divide between appearances and true innovation in robotics. But what does it take …

A Yann LeCun–Linked Startup Charts a New Path to AGI

A Yann LeCun–Linked Startup Charts a New Path to AGI

Published by skeptic

If you ask Yann LeCun, Silicon Valley has a groupthink problem. Since leaving Meta in November, the researcher and AI luminary has taken aim at the orthodox view that large language models (LLMs) will get us to artificial general intelligence (AGI), the threshold where computers match or exceed human smarts. Everyone, he declared in a recent interview, has been “LLM-pilled.” On January 21, San Francisco–based startup Logical Intelligence appointed LeCun to its board. Building on a theory conceived by LeCun two decades prior, the startup claims to have developed a different form of AI, better equipped to learn, reason, and self-correct. Logical Intelligence has developed what’s known as an energy-based reasoning model (EBM). Whereas LLMs effectively predict the most likely next word in a sequence, EBMs absorb a set of parameters—say, the rules to sudoku—and complete a task within those confines. This method is supposed to eliminate mistakes and require far less compute, because there’s less trial and error. The startup’s debut model, Kona 1.0, can solve sudoku puzzles many times faster than the world’s …

Who’s behind AMI Labs, Yann LeCun’s ‘world model’ startup

Who’s behind AMI Labs, Yann LeCun’s ‘world model’ startup

Published by skeptic

Yann LeCun’s new venture, AMI Labs, has drawn intense attention since the AI scientist left Meta to found it. This week, the startup finally confirmed what it’s building — and several key details have been hiding in plain sight. On its newly launched website, the startup disclosed its plans to develop “world models” in order to “build intelligent systems that understand the real world.” The focus on world models was already hinted at by AMI’s name, which stands for Advanced Machine Intelligence, but it has now officially joined the ranks of the hottest AI research startups. Building foundational models that bridge AI and the real world has become one of the field’s most exciting pursuits, attracting top scientists and deep-pocketed investors alike — product or no product. World Labs, a direct rival founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, became a unicorn shortly after coming out of stealth. After launching its first product, Marble, which generates physically sound 3D worlds, World Labs is now reportedly in talks to raise fresh funding at a valuation of $5 …

The Download: Yann LeCun’s new venture, and lithium’s on the rise

The Download: Yann LeCun’s new venture, and lithium’s on the rise

Published by skeptic

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models     Yann LeCun is a Turing Award recipient and a top AI researcher, but he has long been a contrarian figure in the tech world. He believes that the industry’s current obsession with large language models is wrong-headed and will ultimately fail to solve many pressing problems.   Instead, he thinks we should be betting on world models—a different type of AI that accurately reflects the dynamics of the real world. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that he recently left Meta, where he had served as chief scientist for FAIR (Fundamental AI Research), the company’s influential research lab that he founded.  LeCun sat down with MIT Technology Review in an exclusive online interview from his Paris apartment to discuss his new venture, life after Meta, the future of artificial intelligence, and why he thinks the industry is chasing the wrong ideas. Read the full …

Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models

Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models

Published by skeptic

You were working on AI long before LLMs became a mainstream approach. But since ChatGPT broke out, LLMs have become almost synonymous with AI. Yes, and we are going to change that. The public face of AI, perhaps, is mostly LLMs and chatbots of various types. But the latest ones of those are not pure LLMs. They are LLM plus a lot of things, like perception systems and code that solves particular problems. So we are going to see LLMs as kind of the orchestrator in systems, a little bit. Beyond LLMs, there is a lot of AI that is behind the scenes that runs a big chunk of our society. There are assistance driving programs in a car, quick-turn MRI images, algorithms that drive social media—that’s all AI.  You have been vocal in arguing that LLMs can only get us so far. Do you think LLMs are overhyped these days? Can you summarize to our readers why you believe that LLMs are not enough? There is a sense in which they have not been …